Letters to the Editor
Mike Sulzer
Published Letters: 525 Editor's Choice: 2
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Walter
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think we are saying different things about the unicorn, but perhaps that is not so important.
This is:
"The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle alone prevents any scientific conclusion from being 100% correct. But 99.9999987% certainty is good enough for most situations."
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle limits the accuracy the simultaneous measurement of certain observables, such as pairs of corresponding position and momenta components. It does not so limit any scientific conclusion. For example, the accuracy of the equation describing the probabilities of the measurement values is not so limited. And certainly that equation is a scientific conclusion.
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Quadraphone
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"I think it was Ken Wilbur who made the point, that the problem with science is not that it rigourously and logically studies its area of experitise, but it also claims that outside its area of expertise, nothing exists."
I do not think that science claims that nothing outside of its area of expertise exists. How could it? It has expanded to cover many more things over the last several centuries, and will continue to do so. If that claim is from Ken Wilbur, you are listening to a spiritual philosopher. Perhaps he does not really mean what you think he does, or maybe he just does not know.
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You believe this stuff?
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"God may or may not be able to make a stone too great to be lifted - but no scientific test can distinguish a universe 13 billion years old from another that was pulled from Jehovah's hat 6,000 years ago - already pre-aged by 12,999,994,000 years."
In that case, I must quote Dr. Gregory House: "Then you are an idiot."
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Quadraphone
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Of course, science expands to cover whatever it can. One day it may even cover many of the more contentious points in this discussion. But science can only cover what can be proven scientifically. Unfortunately, science tends to insist that the only kind of proof is scientific, and whatever is not scientific is not proof."
Now you are saying something very different. Denying existence is very different from saying that that something has not been shown to exist.
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Droogoy
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think that this statement could be confusing:
"Heisenberg's Principle only applies at the quantum level of observation - not the classical, macroscopic level."
Would it not be better to say that at our normal scale of things, Quantum uncertainty is so small that it is swamped out by other kinds of uncertainty. Thus one must make a special effort to observe these quantum effects.
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Walter
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhaps it would have been clearer if I had said "It does not so limit all scientific conclusions." But I gave you an example of one that is not so limited, so you should have been able to see what I meant. Clearly all scientific conclusions are not limited by the uncertainty principle. Constants (such as Planck's) are observables in Quantum mechanics since one can devise an experiment to measure them, and the accuracy of such measurements is not limited directly by that principle as are momenta/position pairs.
I think you do not have enough knowledge of physics to be grading people. You missed the unicorn thing, and that was bad enough.
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Quadraphone
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I see your point, or actually several of them. I am being too picky.
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Walter
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The uncertainty principle applies to observables that are non-commuting linear operators, such as corresponding pairs of momentum and position components. Constants are numbers, a degenerate form of linear operator, and they commute with all other linear operators.
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Walter
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"And yet, the exact value of Plank's constant cannot be determined, because it is necessarily derived from measured quantities, and those measurements are subject to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle."
If you remember, I said that it is not directly affected. And you agree with that.
However, what you now say must be limited as well. Random errors due to the HUC in the measurement of a constant can be reduced by repeating the measurement many times and averaging the results, since the errors are independent. There are other sources of error as well, and so there is a limit as to how many you need to reduce the HUC errors to negligible.
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correction
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]make that HUP. Long day, getting tired.
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Science doesn't skimp on miracles.
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Now there is something I can agree with!
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Droogoy
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Well, let's get a handle on the magnitudes we're talking about here."
Yes, it is very small, but there is no sudden threshold or phase change. And classical physics implies that any scale size is still "classical". I prefer to keep to keep quantum nature in the back of my head even for classical stuff.
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superposition
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Droogoy wrote:
"The point I was trying to make is that the magnitude is at such a small level that the "superposition of states" does not apply to this domain."
Does not practically apply, yes. But I like to think that superposition of states does still apply. All states with significant probability have wave functions with such short wavelengths and decay lengths that any interference effects occur on too small a scale length to matter.
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The "power" of atheists?
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nonetheless, I think it would be incredibly presumptuous to assume that atheists, agnostics, Ba'Haists, or whatever HUMAN population is not capable of being corrupted by power and influence.
But atheists do not have an organization that has social power, as a religion has a church. How do you think this power or abuse of power is going to occur?
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John Andserson
[Read the article: The atheist delusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think you have let yourself be affected by one person way too much. He backed down on the quantum mechanics issue yesterday because he had to, but he came back today with the original assertion anyway. He failed that test, and so I see no reason to talk to him further. I was surprised that he received some praise from those he was torturing. A bit of Naivete perhaps.